Human Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Many rural areas can be seen as cosmopolitan areas whose social fabric is changing due to large numbers of migrant labourers and changing socioeconomic factors that turn them into translocal/transnational social spaces. globalised intensive agriculture requires a very high proportion of migrant agricultural workers who are trapped in precarity, labour control and ethnic labour segregation, which in turn reproduces exploitative labour relations and has immense implications for socio-spatial justice in rural areas. Migrant labourers often organise social mobilisations to protect their social rights, improve their working conditions, and increase their wages. The broader claims for socio-spatial justice in intensive agriculture and rural areas in general, are seen as vague aspirations, even though such claims are increasingly associated with the need for rural resilience, food sovereignty, and/or agricultural sustainability.

Considering U.Beck’s ‘Metamorphosis of the World’ which looks two interrelated movements, namely the framing of issues which are becoming increasingly globalised, and the practice/action of individuals that are becoming cosmopolitan, together with E.Soja’s plea for ‘seeking spatial justice’, this session aims to uncover the multiplicity of realities found at the intersection of migrant agricultural labour, the social mobilisation(s) of migrant workers, and the recurring claims for socio-spatial justice. More specifically, this session aspires to explore the actual and normative aspects of the interrelations among migrant labour, social movement(s) and spatial justice.

This session aims to attract contributions from different parts of the world that address the characteristics and dynamics of migrant labour and the linkages to social mobilisation and justice.